


The Good Food Guide to Past, Present, and Future

by vienna_salvatori



Category: Doctor Who (Big Finish Audio)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-27
Updated: 2020-02-27
Packaged: 2021-02-27 20:13:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,241
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22921573
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vienna_salvatori/pseuds/vienna_salvatori
Summary: 8, Liv, and Helen go looking for lunch.
Comments: 5
Kudos: 17





	The Good Food Guide to Past, Present, and Future

‘You know’, Helen murmurs, ‘Sometimes I wonder how the Doctor even manages to find these situations. For an apparently infinite amount of time and space, we seem to have a habit of stumbling upon an awful lot of evil schemes.’ Despite the, ah, _circumstances_ , her voice is steady, and she looks about as dignified as it is possible to be while still cowering underneath a table.

Liv huffs out a laugh in return, just as quietly. ‘You know what I’m wondering? Why I still believe him when he says we’ll have a nice relaxing holiday. Every single time I get my hopes up, and every single time-’

‘-you end up hiding underneath a table, hoping that the diners won’t notice their main meal isn’t where it’s supposed to be?’

‘well, not always exactly that, but you get the gist.’ Cautiously, she shifts the tablecloth slightly, giving herself a view of the room. ‘There, look. Door in the far wall.’

Helen shakes her head. ‘Wrong way. If I remember the map of this place right, that’s just going deeper inside. Is there a door on the other side too, do you think?’

Obediently, her friend shuffles over to the other side of the table, and peers out. ‘Yep. There’s a couple guards in the way though.’ 

‘Surely they can’t be _that_ fast.’

‘Guess there’s one way to find out’, Liv mutters, and then scrambles out from under the table, with a shout of “Oi! You with the antennae!’ Immediately, every figure in the room turns in her direction.

‘Liv! – oh, never mind!’ Helen scrambles out after her, and pelts towards the door, trying not to pay too much attention to the cacophony erupting in her wake. Just a few more yards…

Something crashes into her shoulder blades and she slams into the ground, hard. With a gargantuan effort, she rolls onto her back, staring up at whatever attacked her. The image takes a moment to resolve itself- spiral shell, but not at the right angle, antennae looped forward and supporting what she can only assume is a gun- _are those thrusters?_

Liv, though, is still standing. With the calm demeanour of someone who has been imperilled far too many times to be phased in the slightest by a snail with a jetpack, she scoops up a nearby plate and flings it at the guard pursuing her. It spirals out of the way with surprising agility, and fires what looks like a blast of electricity in her direction.

Liv collapses, joining Helen on the floor. ‘Captured twice in under an hour. I wish I could say that was a new record.’

‘I guess it’s too much to hope that we’ll end up on the other side of the lunch table, this time.’

‘Yeah, probably’, Liv replies, then one of the snails nudges her shoulder with slightly more force than necessary, and she drags herself upright and begins to head back to the prison block.

* * *

‘Helen! Liv! Good to see you!’ The sight of their old cell (of approximately fifteen minutes, the locks didn’t seem to be designed to hold people with opposable thumbs) would probably be more depressing if it was empty. The site of the Doctor, cheerfully folding origami cranes out of paper he got from… somewhere… is just plain irritating.

‘You took your time’, Liv tells him, as she’s shoved roughly inside. Helen follows a moment later, stumbling slightly as one of the guards rams into her arm when she hesitates on the threshold. (apparently, they’re making up for the lack of useful limbs through persistent bumping.) Liv catches Helen’s arm as she stumbles, steadying her, and holding on for slightly longer than is strictly necessary to check that she’s okay.

‘So, are we going to stand around and wait to be turned into snail food, or are we getting out of here?’ Liv asks, after a momentary pause. She’s met with silence.

‘I like the second option’, Helen chimes in. ‘What do you think, Doctor?’

‘Hmm? Oh, I suppose we can head off’, the Doctor says, distractedly. ‘I’m quite curious, though. The TARDIS data bank was quite clear that the gastropod-like inhabitants of this planet were peaceful vegetarians with a flair for well-constructed salads. It definitely didn’t say anything about eating people.’

‘Well, that’s a mystery for another time’, Liv tells him, ramming the door with her shoulder. It doesn’t budge, so she grits her teeth and tries again.

‘I don’t suppose you’re carrying salt in those pockets of yours?’ Helen asks, over the sound of the door frame splintering and Liv’s shout of triumph. ‘At least, I assume salt will work on alien snails as well as Earth ones.’

‘Helen, Helen, Helen, surely we don’t need to kill them!’

‘They’re trying to eat us!’

‘They’re just hungry!’

‘So am I!’ Liv cuts in. ‘I was promised the best lunch this side of Andromeda, so I skipped breakfast. I should’ve known that would be a mistake.’

‘All right, all right!’ The Doctor scowls, then digs around in his pockets. There’s a distinctive crinkling noise, and a moment later he withdraws a packet of crisps. Then another. Then another.

‘Really? Liv asks, but Helen just rolls her eyes, grabbing a packet and tossing another one to Liv. ‘Let’s go’.

The corridor is quiet- apparently the snails fled when Liv broke down the door- and somehow, they make it back to the TARDIS without incident.

* * *

‘Lunch, attempt two’, The Doctor tells them, as they step into the marketplace. It’s busy, alien, chaotic, and apparently also in the middle of a full-scale rebellion.

‘On second thoughts’, the Doctor says, and the three of them head back inside.

* * *

‘Third time lucky?’ Helen asks. They’re on Earth, this time- England, to be precise, and somewhere in Helen’s future. Still a long way in the past for Liv, though.

‘This place is cute’, Liv says, trying to keep the suspicion from her voice. After their last few attempts, she’s understandably dubious about anything that looks quite so picturesque and… well, for want of a better word, _twee_.

‘It is! I wonder if they do tea’, the Doctor says, before getting thoroughly distracted by the cake display. Helen’s almost impressed. She didn’t think anything could distract the Doctor from tea.

They end up sprawled across sofas in the corner by the window facing the road. The Doctor, having examined their tea selection and declared it good and their cakes and declared them excellent, has moved onto critiquing the selection of animal pins in a wildlife donation box on the windowsill. Helen, for her part, is just happy for the chance to sit down, drink her hot chocolate, and eat her ginger slice in peace.

Their tea arrives. The Doctor’s is served in a teapot painted with the union jack, while Liv’s is a rainbow. She adores it.

‘Do you sell these, by any chance?’ Liv asks the waiter. The man freezes. He looks… well, slightly odd, for a waiter in a tea shop in a small English village- dressed all in black, with an impressively terrible moustache. ‘Um. Upstairs, on t’left’, he says, with the most atrociously fake northern accent any of them have ever heard.

‘… thank you?’ Helen offers, tentatively. The man nods, then shuffles back across the room.

There’s silence for a moment, then Liv and the Doctor move almost simultaneously to pour themselves cups of tea. Liv smiles, leaning back into the sofa. She’s slightly closer to Helen than is strictly necessary, their arms touching, and she’s got nice food and no one’s actively trying to kill any of them. Life is good.

The Doctor, for his part, is staring into his cup in complete and total despair.

‘Is that aspirin?’ Helen asks, staring in utter bewilderment at the tablets dissolving at the bottom of his cup. He nods, completely heartbroken. ‘It’s poisonous to Time Lords’, he tells her. ‘They ruined my tea!’

Liv gets the distinct feeling he’s far more put out by the loss of tea than the assassination attempt. ‘Can we stay, though?’ she asks. ‘This is a lot more subtle than the other problems we’ve encountered, and this cake is really, really good.’

The Doctor pulls out his sonic, scans their food just in case, and shrugs. ‘I suppose so’, he says. ‘Pity about the tea. The cake is very good, though.’

(They do end up buying a rainbow teapot from the pottery store upstairs. It was hardly the fault of the owners that a mysterious figure in dark clothing with stupid facial hair had tried to kill the Doctor, after all, and it was a very, very good teapot.)

‘This is beginning to look like a pattern’, Liv comments, as they amble past the playing fields and back towards the TARDIS. ‘The last two could have just been your bad piloting skills-’

‘Oi! I’m not that bad!’

‘Yes, you are’, Liv tells him. Helen doesn’t outright voice her agreement, but she very pointedly doesn’t support the Doctor either, no matter how many puppy-dog looks he sends in her direction.

‘What just happened, though, is pretty obviously an attack on you’, Liv continues. The Doctor scowls, then completely breaks any illusion of seriousness by skipping lightly over a cattle grid.

‘Lots of people want me dead’, he says, casually, as he digs in his pockets for his TARDIS key. It’s parked itself next to a line of portaloos sitting on the edge of a campsite. There’s probably some amusing comment to be made about the TARDIS’ choice of location, but since she’s apparently sentient, Liv decides not to vocalise it. ‘I’m sure it’s nothing.’

‘Nothing- Doctor, aspirin in tea would just be disgusting, for a human. There’s no way it would do anything if it wasn’t targeted at you!’

He just disappears into the TARDIS, babbling something about a sushi restaurant in the Drashani Empire that they could try for dinner. Helen and Liv exchange an exasperated glance, then Helen hurries inside, too.

Liv goes to follow her, then stops, and takes another look at the campsite. Down the opposite end to where they landed, there’s a yurt. There’s also a tent with another tent strapped to the top of it. One of the tents closest to them is definitely bent out of shape, one a bit further down has some kind of flag securely duct taped to it in such a manner that suggests the tent’s owner might not be entirely responsible for it… it’s actually possible that the TARDIS wouldn’t look too out of place here, anyway. It would probably also be possible for another cloaked ship to land here, and for absolutely no one to notice.

She shakes her head, slightly, then heads inside, shutting the door behind her. Really, it was a pity about the assassination attempt. The village had seemed quite nice.

* * *

‘You know’, Helen says, when her two friends stumble back into the TARDIS after yet another unsuccessful attempt at lunch, ‘ _I_ could have told you that buying bread from Pudding Lane in 1666 was a terrible idea.’

‘He could have, too’, Liv growls, once she’s gotten her breath back and coughed up a concerning amount of ash. ‘If he’d bloody remembered that he was already there!’

* * *

‘I’ve got one’, Liv offers, from where she’s scrolling through the data bank. The _Harmony and Redemption_ , space cruise touring the seven galaxies.’

‘Hold on, Helen tells her, from where she’s started double-checking all of these things against external records. ‘I’ve got another entry for that in _History's Finest Exploding Restaurants_.’

‘Oh. Right. I guess I’ll keep looking, then.’

* * *

‘All right, this is getting ridiculous’, Helen gasps, as they propel themselves across the now gravity-less space station. It’s only a matter of time before other important systems start failing, too. ‘When did you last update this data bank of yours, Doctor?’

‘I’m not sure’, he replies. Then he stops. ‘Actually, I might not have been the last person to update it.’

‘Oh, that’s just wonderful’, Liv hisses. ‘You’ve had the TARDIS for how long and you’ve never updated it?!’

‘No, no, I have’, he assures her. It’s just- well, now that I think about it, the last time someone interfered with the data banks…’

‘Why do I get the feeling I’m not going to like this?’

‘It might have been the Master responsible?’

‘What’. Liv sounds absolutely furious.

‘He set a trap for me’, the Doctor explains, hurriedly, eyeing Liv like he’s half expecting her to completely snap any moment now. ‘Invented a planet called Castrovalva, programmed it into the databanks, and lured me there. It never occurred to me that he put in anything else.’

‘Well, how about you fix that, now’, Helen tells him, grabbing Liv’s arm, and dragging her towards the TARDIS before she does something she’ll regret. ‘Come on. I’ll cook something. It might not be brilliant, but at least we won’t be at risk of dying.’

‘Thanks’, Liv murmurs. ‘Oh, I can’t believe him. The Master got in here? And he didn’t check to see if anything was messed with?’

Helen shrugs. ‘He probably checked the important systems. And at least we found out before anyone got killed. Now, what do you feel like? I must admit, my time period isn’t exactly inspired, food wise, but I like to think my Yorkshire puddings aren’t too bad.’

‘I’ve got no idea what that is’, Liv tells her. ‘But I’m sure it’ll be brilliant.’


End file.
